Jun. 23, 2016, 11:14 a.m.

Restrictions on speeches and parades outside next month's Republican National Convention were struck down by a federal judge Thursday as unconstitutional.

At a Thursday morning hearing, U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin said he would issue a preliminary injunction forcing the city of Cleveland to rewrite its restrictions for a potentially contentious convention expected to draw up to 100,000 politicians, delegates, supporters, protesters and media.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio had sued the city of Cleveland in a lawsuit that also included a liberal group, Organize Ohio, and a conservative group, Citizens for Trump, that had hoped to hold parades near the convention events in the heart of the city.

In a general election campaign dominated by back-and-forth accusations of lies and bickering over temperament by the presumptive nominees of the major parties, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has no plans to jump into the fray.

And he’s certain it will help him pick off some votes.

“Really, stick to the issues, stick to issues that are facing this country, and there are plenty,” Johnson, a former New Mexico governor, said Wednesday night at a town hall hosted by CNN, when talking about his long-shot campaign for the White House.

Johnson, who was also the Libertarian Party's nominee four years ago, is fighting for attention as Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, castigate each other daily in speeches and on social media.

More than candidates in past elections, Trump and Clinton are struggling to make voters like them.

Polls indicate neither is succeeding – a fact not lost on Johnson and his running mate, former Massachusetts GOP Gov. Bill Weld, who joined him at the town hall Wednesday. In low-key campaign appearances, both have called the two-party system broken and a major problem facing the country.

A CNN/ORC poll released this week showed voters disenchanted with Clinton and Trump – a trend that’s been consistent for both candidates throughout the primary and now into the general election. In the survey, 60% said they had an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 56% for Clinton. By contrast, 15% had an unfavorable view of Johnson, but half said they'd never heard of him.

The end of the primary season doesn't mean that Hillary Clinton is running to the center.

On Monday in Ohio, Clinton will be joined on the campaign trail for the first time by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a favorite of the Democratic Party's progressive base.

And on Wednesday, Clinton used an economic speech here to double down on some of the more liberal themes of her primary campaign against democratic socialist Bernie Sanders — and even use some of his own rhetoric.

The pundits solemnly remind us this will be The First Executive Decision the White House hopefuls make after emerging from the muck of the primaries, offering a glimpse inside their heads if not their political souls.

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Jun. 22, 2016, 12:49 p.m.

Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor to President George H.W. Bush and one of the leading figures of the Republican national security establishment, endorsed Hillary Clinton for president Wednesday.

The endorsement is the most high-profile indication yet of the depth of discomfort that Republican foreign policy figures feel about Donald Trump as their party's nominee.

The Clinton campaign sees doubts about Trump's ability to handle foreign policy as a major plus for their side. Endorsements by well-known Republican foreign policy figures could add to her advantage on that front.

Donald Trump attempted to relaunch his troubled campaign Wednesday with a scripted speech fusing his anti-trade economic message with a series of attacks on Hillary Clinton that ran the gamut from harsh, to unprovable to false.

It was in many ways two speeches, one designed to show a more disciplined politician who could capitalize on Americans’ economic anxieties over globalism with promises to restore manufacturing jobs and protect blue-collar workers from what Trump characterized as a threat from immigrant labor.

The second major aspect of the speech, the attack on Clinton, mixed controversies in her career and serious questions about her record with allegations that came largely from a book, “Clinton Cash,” which chronicled various scandals in her career but draws some conclusions that go beyond the available evidence.